Mendoza spoke further about MassMutual's diversity push, and the company's priorities for reaching five key multicultural markets.

What are your responsibilities as VP-Multicultural Market Development. Which one do you think is the top priority heading into 2013?

Chris: I lead the development of multicultural markets for MassMutual’s U.S. Insurance Group. I’m responsible for building business and marketing strategies to acquire new customers and new financial professionals from cultural markets to our company. We do this through developing relationships and processes that will enable agencies to effectively market to multicultural consumers and those who are interested in a career in financial services.

Internally, I act as a consultant to other business partners in the company, as they lead their efforts to service and support the cultural markets customers we acquire.

And I oversee a team of five marketers who each lead a specific cultural market that the company is focusing on: African American, Hispanic, Korean, Chinese and Asian Indian.

In terms of a top priority for 2013, we’re very much in a growth mode and don’t see that momentum stopping anytime soon. The demographics of our country are shifting, and we’re becoming a more diverse nation. Thus, Americans from all walks of life are in need of our financial products and services.

Which aspect of your prior experience within MassMutual do you feel will serve you the most as VP?

Chris: I joined MassMutual five years ago as the sole person responsible for developing a strategy for multicultural marketing and building a program from ground-up. Because I have been so intimately involved in development of the strategy, as well as the respective programs for each focus market, I am well-positioned to envision the ideal future state and the best path to get there. In support of this, and of equal importance, is having a good understanding of the organization’s culture and knowledge of how to navigate work and issues to successful outcomes.

What are your short-term goals and long-term initiatives for MassMutual’s market strategy and business development?

Chris: At this point, we’ve launched programs in all five of our focus markets, so our goals for 2013 involve broadening and deepening involvement in and the scope of each program.

This includes recruiting more financial professionals who are actively working in these markets and continuing to increase the amount of support they receive from their local offices and the home office. We’re also focused on deepening our understanding of each market through research, documenting best practices and establishing and expanding culturally relevant relationships with key organizations in each market.

How has the company previously marketed itself to its customers? Which media channel was most effective? Will you test or install new channels?

Chris: Before I came on board to begin formalizing the company’s approach to multicultural markets, our approach to cultural market development was driven at local levels by our financial services offices throughout the country.

We had pockets of multicultural practices, but each was very dependent on one or two personalities and was very locally focused. Since we’ve expanded our program over the past several years, we’ve developed broader business strategies to engage a larger number of offices across the country.

From a marketing communications standpoint, we’ve become more involved with digital and social media, understanding that many multicultural groups are early adopters of new technology; we’re very active and dependent on social media sites, which we know many multicultural groups depend on for the bulk of their financial-related information. We are increasingly focusing on .

Does MassMutual have a specific audience that it wishes to market/attract that lies within multicultural? I understand you have researched Hispanic entrepreneurship, yet I wanted to know if that market was one of the audiences and if there are others.

Chris: As mentioned, we’re currently focused on five cultural markets (African American, Hispanic, Korean, Chinese and Asian Indian), and we have an interest in entrepreneurs and business owners across each of these segments. Our research tells us that minority-owned businesses are exploding, essentially becoming the backbone of our American economy. Besides business owners, we have a focus on the personal insurance markets for each of these groups.

Specifically within the Hispanic and Asian segments, we have a more specific demographic segment – one that that allows us to approach them with a messages and marketing that that speaks to them about our products and services.

It seems like partnerships with other companies, primarily to co-brand and market MassMutual, is something the company may focus on. Can you talk about these alliances and which ones you are working with in 2013?

Sure, we understand that in order to grow our customer base, we have to be where our customers are. So we have a number of relationships with professional and cultural organizations, as well as media outlets, to help us reach our potential customers.

We also have a strong relationship with Black Enterprise, once again because we have shared interests in ensuring African-American entrepreneurs and business owners can sustain their businesses, even into the next generation. Our plans are to continue working with these organizations, along with other key business and cultural organizations.

Does the company work with third-party marketing agencies to help with outreach? If so, can you tell me who they are? Are there certain services (like SEO, digital, etc.) that you keep your eye out for?

We work with a variety of marketing and public relations agencies that have very targeted and unique expertise.